Why did it feel like he wasn’t talking about the knife anymore?

I didn’t know what to say. I knew a million things I should have said, but I had no idea how to begin.

His face was partially hidden in the shadows. “Are you scared of me?”

I should have been. Him standing there with a knife in his hand and blood on his fingers…perhaps I should have been terrified of him.

But I wasn’t. I shook my head.

He stepped closer until he was right in front of me. I fixed my eyes on his throat, saw it bob when he swallowed, traced my eyes over the goosebumps on his skin and the ink etched into his flesh.

“Jess.”

I looked up. His eyes were almost black in the night.

“What are you doing out here?” he repeated the question, but it was different this time. He meant something different.

What was I doing out here?

“Playing with things I shouldn’t,” I said softly.

He lunged forward so quickly I didn’t even have time to make a sound. He pressed me back against the tree and jabbed the knife’s blade into the trunk high above my head, his arm extended as he clung to the handle. The thud of it hitting the wood left my heart hammering, the thrill of danger leaving tingles all over my body.

He lifted his bloody hand and moved it close to my cheek, but not close enough to touch.

“You might get cut playing like that.” His voice was rough, and my stomach quivered. Things felt so different in the dark.

I reached up, carefully, to where his hand hovered near my face. It felt like a magnet locking into place when I put my fingers around his wrist. “I’m not afraid of a little blood.”

His hand cupped my cheek, and his lips crashed into mine. I was completely overcome within a split second, all the air snatched out of my lungs, my brain short-circuiting into chaos. He kissed me like he was trying to make a point, like he was punishing me. We parted, and his finger dragged across my mouth…

I licked my lip and tasted iron, and he shuddered as something feral came over his expression.

“God fucking damn it, Jessica.” His voice was desperately pained. He was so heavy against me, and I liked it too much. I liked the taste of him, how his blood was metallic and sweet on my tongue.

There was something wrong with me. Normal people didn’t do this shit, right? But no one could see us. No one had to know…

His next kiss was slow. His entire body moved with it. Surging against me, overtaking me, filling my brain with this vast empty space full of only sensation.

It was as good as I remembered. Better. I’d tried to convince myself that I’d romanticized it all in my mind, but no. He was everything I remembered. His taste, his scent, his body.